At the beginning of the experiment, Mr. Zumbardo and the students expected to study how the social context of an individual influence their behavior. The experiment aimed to last two weeks, the students who volunteered in the experiment were divided into prisoners and guards. The prisoners were caught by surprise just like prisoners are and removed from their daily routine into prison. Both had uniforms and a new life and roles to play. The prisoners spent 24 hours in prison, and the guards worked in 8-hour shifts. The social environment induced behaviors not expected by the students ( Bartels, 2015). The active students turned into passive prisoners, and guards became strict like it was real. Zumbardo notes that he forgot that he was only acting.
Social workers previously focused on personal attributes including an individual's genetic makeup, personality, and temperament. However, the bias and skewed focus fail to look at other dispositional factors including the situation which was found to be essentially the Stanford experiment. The situational experiment is an indicator of the importance of the situation in which an individual is exposed to thus, certain behavior is contextually induced. Another classic example of contextual is that of Stanley Milgram experiment on ordinary citizens shocking an innocent victim just because they have been directed by an authority figure (Rochat & Blass, 2014).
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The video is essential to social workers in understanding clients from a holistic point of view that incorporates the situation that led to the behavior of the person. Further, it propels the social worker from the focus on the individual and their interactions with others into systemic abuses that have inherently led to poor institution environment and especially prisons. For instance, the guards found themselves exerting pressure which caused stress and passiveness in their subjects and eventually leading the experiment to be terminated after six days contrary to the original plan of two weeks ( Bartels, 2015). It is useful in spearheading behavior change in institutionalized people by altering the environment to be suitable for positive change.
References
Bartels, J. M. (2015). The Stanford prison experiment in introductory psychology textbooks: A content analysis. Psychology Learning & Teaching , 14 (1), 36-50.
Rochat, F., & Blass, T. (2014). Milgram's unpublished obedience variation and its historical relevance. Journal of Social Issues , 70 (3), 456-472.
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